


Mid-Autumn Festival

by Lamprey



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bloodplay, Light BDSM, M/M, lieumon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamprey/pseuds/Lamprey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Mid-Autumn Festival, and Liu finds out what why Amon hides himself away on full-moon nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mid-Autumn Festival

Liu knows one night every month where he can’t hold him in his arms, press lips to taste his, and unite with him in a mass of tangled sheets, hot breathes, and whispered names. It’s the time of night when the moonlight shines down, reveals her face and reveals all those under her in warm light. But shadows lengthen, too, casting elongated apparitions that touch beyond the reach of the person casting it.  
  
A couple days before the full moon, Amon withdraws, leaves more tasks and operations to Liu, speaks less, responds less, a glaze sets in his eyes and sleep is even more elusive. He will sit up and dangle his feet off the bed, his arms on either side, leaning over, staring at a point on the opposite wall, as if he sees a ghost outlined in the mass of papers adorning the wall. And Liu will softly rub his arms in the dark, coaxing him to sleep in his arms with concerned touches, but Amon will gently, very gently say “Not tonight,” and he will lift his hands, watch them twitch, grasping, ungrasping.  
  
And on the night of the full moon, Liu will regard the cool, empty side of the bed with outstretched arms, imagines a warm body curled in them, his breath brushing Liu’s face (or chin or nose or eyelids only if porcelain is present). He lets his mind wander to the other side of the wall, and he will always be surprised how it can still twist his heart into a wrinkled mess of longing and helplessness. But Amon’s side is always silent on this night.  
  
The next couple nights Amon will pointedly avoid Liu’s grasps for his wrists, his seeking lips, he will wear long sleeves and long pants and curl away on the bed, his backbone peeking through linen. And then, like lunar phases, he will let Liu touch the inside of his wrist, press his lips to his while blind, and let him wrap his arms around him as he folds into the gentle curve of Liu.  
  
Tonight is a full moon, too. But tonight is also the Mid-Autumn Festival. Benders and non-benders will hurry home with ornate boxes full of mooncakes and cut them into pieces for their loved ones. People with wrinkles at the corners of their eyes will sit young ones on their laps and tell them about Yue and how she rose up to be the moon. About the archer Houyi and his lover, Chang’e, who lives with Yue and keeps a white hare who pounds medicine and how they only have this night to love each other (for all was a misunderstanding over one small pill).  
  
And lanterns will float like gentle feathers into the sky, so that they may keep Yue company as her companion goes to seek out her lover. Amon has always allowed his Equalists to take off their masks for this night and seek the dances below red lanterns, laughing, twirling, throwing handkerchiefs into the crowd, and waiting for someone to return that handkerchief, scented with sandalwood, maybe perfume or cologne, maybe a hope for love.  
  
So Liu decides that, whatever Amon does to keep his ghosts away from him, whatever memories he tries to wall himself from on these nights, he will at least try try and try to fight Amon’s bad misgivings about these nights. He will try to create good memories. He will start, one mooncake, one lantern at a time. And this is the night he will try. He will dare.  
  
He places the mooncake on a red handkerchief (he leaves the other red one stuffed in the back of his pocket, just in case) on the wooden tray, the symbol for harmony crusted golden in a bed of soft petals. There’s a knife lying beside it, to cut through the dense filling of lotus seed paste. The terracotta pot is steaming softly, bitter pu-erh tea in its belly, to offset the sweetness of cake. Carefully, steadily, he enters with his back through the door to Amon’s room after a knock and an announcement of his intentions to enter the room.  
  
He isn’t in bed. Or at his desk. Liu wrinkles his brow in puzzlement, sets the tray down on the desk. He would have heard Amon leave, and close the door behind him, if he went out. He sees the dark bathroom, door slightly ajar. He walks to close it, and grabs the metal doorknob.  
  
Liu recoils. It’s cold to the touch. Unnaturally so. A cold air is wafting from the bathroom. With dread slowing his movements, he pushes the door lightly, it groans back, letting the dull light of the room in a little further. He fumbles one hand in the dark to the right, finds what he’s looking for, and switches on the light.  
  
In a small moment, Liu’s glad that he’s already set the tray down on the desk, the terracotta pot would have been dashed into pieces against the floor from his shock. Amon, stripped of all clothing except that porcelain, is curled into himself in the bathtub, his hands above him, chained by metal to the faucet. He’s surrounded by ice, Liu can see fabric gagging his mouth as it comes from his mask. His wrists are bleeding softly, his bound ankles are also, Liu can see a little bit of diluted blood on the ice, reflecting at him. He’s completely unresponsive.  
  
Liu is a blur as he pulls the shower curtain aside, ripping a few notches off the rings, his panicky, twitchy hands trying to free Amon’s hands from the faucet. He doesn’t know where the key is, he doesn’t know how Amon manages to get out of this every month, where the ice came from, or if this time he went too far. And there are so many why’s on his mind as he dashes to his room, rummages in his drawer, and runs back, screwdriver in hand. He unscrews the faucet, and Amon’s hands fall down, elbows hitting the bathtub with a dull thud. Liu carefully sets the faucet on the tile, making a note to screw it back in later.  
  
With arms fueled by panic and adrenaline, he scoops the too-pale and cold body of his lover and takes wide steps allowed by his height to Amon’s bed, gingerly lays him down, his eyes still shut beneath porcelain. He wraps the blanket around him, flips out a knife from his pocket, and starts to saw at the rope binding his ankles, taking care not to pull and put too much pressure on the raw skin. It comes apart, and Amon’s legs come loose. Liu leans closer to inspect his wrists when very strong, cold fingers grab his shirt, crazed eyes boring through him.  
  
Amon is furiously shaking his head, knuckles white as he grips Liu’s shirt like he’s drowning. Liu reaches behind Amon’s head to undo the gag with worried eyes, Amon struggles to pull his head away, turning, twisting, but Liu is triumphant and pulls the saliva-soaked gag away.  
  
“N-no! No no, L-liu, put m-me back, put me b-back, I can’t be out here!” he shouts, teeth clattering, every bit as panicked as Liu is. He strongly pushes Amon’s shoulders back into the bed.  
  
“Amon, what’s wrong? Why are you doing this?” Liu’s voice is crackled with worry, feels the cold, sluggish body under his fingers.  
  
“I c-can’t be out here, I h-have to do this!” He’s struggling, his trapped wrists between them. His head turns this and that, his eyes darting around like he’s following phantoms flying around the room.  
  
“Amon, please, stop!” Liu’s shouting, pressing, worrying his palms into shoulders. “Please, let me me get those handcuffs off you,” he begs.  
  
“NO!” Amon jerks Liu off in a surprising display of strength, bolts up to stand on shaking, unsteady legs away from the bed before Liu is on his feet again (as he always is) and throws his body at Amon and traps him against the wall they share, his head making a soft thunk against the wall. He presses his warm, clothed chest to Amon’s, imprisoning his bound wrists, holding Amon up by the armpits as he slumps his forehead unto his shoulder. He struggles, but it is weak, Liu has to increase his strength, before Amon’s body collapses between immovable wall and stubborn Liu.  
  
“Amon,” he starts softly, “Please, stop. Just stop.” Amon’s breathing is quick, but Liu can hear it slow down ever so little. “Tell me, what’s wrong? Why are you doing this?” he repeats, as his body warms Amon’s bit by bit.  
  
He’s greeted with silence, a long, heavy silence. Liu is about to drag Amon to the bed when Amon’s voice responds softly back, “The moon. It makes me ill.”  
  
“The moon…?” Liu inquires, a tone of encouragement in his voice. He’s confused how the moon can infect a non-bender, but then again, he supposes a communal with spirits is not without its price to pay.  
  
“I’ve hurt…” he trails off, and continues in an even tone with a force of effort behind it, “I must be bound. I must be made cold so I can’t feel the moon. I must be punished for the things I’ve done.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, else” he finishes, the words “especially you” dying on his tongue.  
  
There’s a draft of cold that floods into the space between clothed chest and bare chest as Liu takes a step back, still holding Amon. His head starts to droop but Liu pushes his forehead to red circle and looks at the downcast eyes hidden inside. “You’re here now, let me exorcise the demons from your past. You don’t have to tell me what they look like,” Liu lies, remembers one night when Amon shouted at his father in fits of nightmare, cold sweat, and torn sheets. The morning after when Liu wove a small lie on how he slept through Amon’s fit. In his own time, Liu will coax out these ghosts with kissed-away tears and reassuring caresses.  
  
But tonight, he will only comfort, and not pry.  
  
“I hear your heart. It sounds like a drum,” Amon quietly states, in a tone of daze. He places shackled hands over Liu’s heart. He’s hypnotized, sees blood vessels lit up like lightning frozen against a night sky, watches the light pulsate with each heartbeat. He watches the paths in his own hands, duller from the cold, pulsating weakly. Amon shakes his head away, squeezes his eyes shut. He still sees the blood vessels lit up, blurring dimly white. He opens his eyes, clarity shining like glass. “Warm me up. Make me forget. Take my power away. Please.” He drops porcelain, chestnut hair, and resignation into the nook of Liu’s neck and shoulder.  
  
A pause, a silence where you can practically hear “Are you sure?” being said from Liu’s thoughts.  
  
“But keep the cuffs on,” Amon whispers into Liu’s ear. He drives a knee up, catching Liu in a surprised gasp.  
  
“I could hurt you in your current state,” gulps Liu, hesitation shackling his desire.  
  
“I hope you do, or I am going to kick you off, lock you out, and go back to my prison,” he hisses, toned with arousal, undertoned with desperation, sprinkled with fear. His thigh jerks to drive his knee further up into Liu when Liu reacts faster and shoves shoulders back, hears shoulder blades hit wood.  
  
Amon laughs, almost hysterically, dripping with dark tones.  
  
Liu scans quickly, and spots a convenient hook haphazardly screwed to the wall, hanging ajar above them. With a firm hand still on Amon’s shoulder, Liu quickly gathers the links between the bangles and pulls them up, one link caught in the hook. Amon’s arms are strung up above him, his biceps framing his porcelain head. He looks above, almost bemused by the turn of events.  
  
Liu steps away from Amon’s knees, allowing drafts between them. Blowing air through his nostrils like a builder regarding the long, hard task ahead, he pulls the red blindfold by tattered corner out and slips it over his eyes, ties it behind, two red tails falling on either side of his neck.  
  
He will give Amon what he wants. Because Liu wants these nights to belong to them, and not to ghosts and the moon. Liu can feel Amon regarding him and the strip of red with cold, yet blazing eyes.  
  
“To not see how pathetic I am?”  
  
“No. To mark you.” A half step forward and he’s feeling his way from clavicle to chin with licks and sucks, traps skin between teeth. He can feel Amon craning his neck back, baring it with taut muscles, offering it. Liu hands crawl up the back of Amon’s neck, his fingers find wet, cold, chestnut hair, and then find string. He pulls a tail, and he feels the breeze as it drops past his their his face. It lands with a ringing clatter.  
  
“That better not be broken,” Amon growls, his voice rumbling without porcelain to obscure it. He does not finish the ‘n’ sound before Liu engulfs his mouth, all teeth and determination. He tests with a light bite on Amon’s lower lip, Amon hisses, “You’ll have to do better than that,” his challenge brushing Liu’s face with hot air.  
  
Liu accepts the challenge, and sinks teeth in, they both taste the tang of iron. Amon sighs with a low, satisfied tone, Liu can feel his mouth stretch into a smile. Liu tells himself that this is just to help Amon. That this dominance, this marking, is all part of it. And there’s no way he wants Amon helpless, strung up, there’s no way he wants to hurt this body of desperation and lust and haunted eyes, exchanging one pain for another.  
  
The heat between his legs, however, tells otherwise.  
  
He kisses a path down, his hands slide down and caress and hold, hears gasping in his wake, and travels lower and lower, each kiss, each bite, is like a wet blossom of warmth spreading to banish the cold tendrils. The lower he gets, the more he can feel Amon curve his body, his back arching slowly backwards, trying to push whatever part of the body Liu’s lips/teeth are on closer. Liu’s pleased with himself how much warmer Amon is with just a few kisses and bites. Liu is down on his knees, and takes Amon’s already rigid heat in his mouth. Amon sharply intakes breath with a strangled gasp and pushes his hip as far as he can from his trapped wrists above him. Liu’s palms slam into his hips, and hips slam into wood, he grips them back like a vice, digging long thin bruises into skin. Amon slips out, and Liu takes him in mouth again, his mustache tickling the sides of Amon’s thighs.  
  
Amon wants to pull his knees up, trap Liu’s head, press it in further, but he’s too weak to buck his hips against lips that envelope his heat, his fogged mind, his everything. The metal is cutting into his raw skin, he feels the heat of bruises forming where Liu’s fingers are, the sharp tingle of the wound on his lip, still slowly bleeding iron, and blessed little awareness of ghosts at the edge of his vision, of blood vessels lighting up. He falls into the rhythm at his crotch, of a slick, hot mouth covering, uncovering, recovering ever inch. He absorbs the feel of tongue, hotter than the rest of Liu’s month, sliding, tasting, brushing.  
  
It’s pooling in his mind, his being, his stomach. It fills from the corner of his mind until his head is swimming, drowning in tumultuous want. The last, isolated fragments of cold are banished from his being. Heat, blood, coils, tighter and tighter in his stomach. A tip, and the bucket spills, Amon jerk his hips, but only deepens the bruises Liu’s fingers leave, he feels relieved as the pool recedes, the coil unfurls, the warmth dissipating as his seed shoots into hot, wet heat, feels Liu’s tongue coat itself as it laps it up. He looks down, heaving, to see a shining trail drip slowly down Liu’s chin.  
  
And then suddenly, Liu is on his feet, three fingers in his own mouth, swirling them around on his tongue, covering them in saliva and the visual remnants of Amon’s spill. Amon feels his right leg being lifted up by the knee, the dip of an elbow pressed to the inside of his knee. He watches his bent knee lift when his vision is covered by Liu’s red-blindfolded face, thick tongue thrusts inside his mouth, past teeth, threatening to choke, to gag him. He tries to fight back with his tongue when his mouth falls open further in a yell of pain (desire) when three slicked fingers jam themselves into him, wet palm cupping him. Strength flees from his legs, and he slumps down further into Liu’s fingers, metal digging into wrists, body possessed by shudders.  
  
Liu rotates his fingers, pressing against his inside, depositing his and Amon’s essence. He plunges, removes, and plunges in again, hearing the music of the audible tones Amon is breathing, pleased by the shivers that begin from the core of his writhing body. He can’t help but emit a low growl as he feels Amon close around him, trying to trap him. Feels him try to press down, but the cuffs keep him suspended.  
  
He withdraws, a thin translucent line connecting them that breaks as the other hand slips to hold the tip as Liu guides it in by feel, by familiarity, by motions well practiced. Its purpose fulfilled, his hand lays, then digs into the area between neck and shoulder. He uses the spatial awareness to guide lips to lips. He bites, reopening the lower lip wound, feeling beads of iron stain his lips. He whispers into Amon’s open mouth, “Give these nights to me.”  
  
He plunges his hips forward, forcing Amon up so his left leg, still touching floor, lifts up for a second, just an inch. Liu feels Amon’s right leg tense, tremble as he holds it up by the knee still. Amon tries to gasp, the intake interrupted by short stops of his lungs, like he’s a fish trying to breath out of water. The staccato gasps turn into long, languid moans as Liu begins to move. Slow at first, but his pace increases exponentially, swinging his hips like a pendulum, attempting to drive Amon further into the wall, further up, in pursuit of  hot friction sliding against itself, building and adding.  
  
Amon wants to slip further down, have Liu fill him deeply and completely as he slams in. Wants to feel the slick slide, feel himself being laid to waste. Pain undercuts his deepening lust, adding fuel to a rapidly building fire. He senses his other leg being lifted, elbow to knee, gravity pulls him down, gifting him with deeper plunges from Liu, cursing him with metal chafing raw, red, possibly bleeding wrists.  
  
Liu is displeased by the angle of his arms, and he hooks his arms over instead of under, Amon’s knees to Liu’s armpits, his hands digging into the chiseled flesh of Amon’s bottom, leaving red, angry scratches. Amon’s calves shift behind him, heels digging into the small of Liu’s back, holding him close, holding him tight, trapping him here, together with him. He pushes forward, pulls backward, and pushes forward hard, affection mutated into lust, his good intentions torn apart by diamond-hard want, no longer listening for the edge of pain to breathy moans, addicted to just the sounds of them, thrusting because he needs his fix.  
  
The dense, coiled heat bursts forward, and Liu presses chest to chest, sucks at Amon’s bleeding lip, breathing his name through clenched, biting teeth. He pools into Amon, filling the small tight spaces between them. The space gets tighter as Amon also clenches, his head thrown back, his mouth open in a silent shout as beads of blood trickle down, as small bits of blood lazily slip from between metal and wrist. Liu can feel himself leak out, hears the soft pat of drips land on the floor. Can feel Amon spill in the space between them, chest still pressed to chest. Liu comes away, sticky in more areas than his groin and chest, panting. Amon’s legs drop down in a tangle, his knees weak, his weight supported by his wrists.  
  
Amon is like a deadweight, his eyes almost closed, breathing in shaky and exhausted. He’s only slightly aware of hearing a clatter, a curse, and then a finger to his chin, before his already constricted vision is bordered by dark areas, his face cooled by the porcelain pressed to his face. A fumble in his hair and the mask hangs, snug and hiding scars that don’t exist in anywhere but Liu’s head. Arms then scoop under his shoulders and his wrists fall forward, freed, finally, taken by weight. He’s gingerly laid on his bed, feels tangled sheets and compressed feathers below him, feels the scratch of fabric pulled over him, under his arms.  
  
His head swims in a sea of fog, aftershocks, blissfully free of wraiths emerging from his past, from his mind. He can still see light reflected in paths inside him, inside Liu, but it’s dull, very dull. Sleep slips in for what seems like a moment, and Amon comes to, his wrists tingling with balm under taut bandages. He’s wearing his loose sleep pants, his body (especially his groin area) sore, but clean. A hand behind him makes him sit up, pulls rippling fabric over him, fastens it in below his porcelain chest, hood falling forward to obscure his sight a little bit, which Liu pulls back slightly. Amon licks his lips, feels his tongue sting the chapped cut on his lip, dried over.  
  
“I need you to see something,” states Liu, brokering nothing else otherwise.  
  
Amon is helped to his feet (simple, comfortable shoes already slipped on), but he’s unsteady, and falls backward. Liu slips his head under Amon’s shoulder, drapes Amon’s hand over his own shoulder, and lifts him, gently, with purposeful strength. Amon takes a weak step forward, then puts the other foot forward, and another, and they’re walking out the door.  
  
“I hope I’m heavy as the ocean, considering what you just did to me,” Amon complains.  
  
Liu only chuckles below him.  
  
He’s not sure where Liu is taking him, he only notices the ground change through the soles of his feet, a steady up angle, stone, gravel, wood, more wood. His view is mostly of the top of Liu’s head, as he stoops to help Amon along. A stop, and he’s wrapped in Liu’s arms, head on Liu’s chest, feet dangling, feeling a lift, a brief stop, and another lift as Liu ascends stairs.  
  
Suddenly a chill enters his face through his eye and mouth slits, fresh, chill air. He feels plastic beneath him as he’s lowered into a chair, and he opens his eyes further, to take in the details of where he is. He’s on the rooftop, probably one of the abandoned buildings that sit above their underground base. There’s distant notes of reverie coming from the areas of Republic City with the most light. And lights everywhere, in even lines, and a whole section of them massed near Yue Bay. The moon sits beautiful, pale, bright, with a haze of rainbow emanating from her. Amon suppresses a chill that threatens to materialize into the shape of a man with harsh, stern features. Liu sits stooped on the floor, his back to Amon, his arms moving slightly on whatever is in front of him.  
  
He sits up and turns around, a tall, square lantern in his arms, textured crepe paper pulled tight between wooden poles. It emits a soft, warm white light, like a beating heart, basking Liu’s smiling face at his forehead, nose, chin. Makes his eyes shine. He kneels in front of Amon, holds out the lantern. Amon reaches out curious hands, mirroring Liu’s grasps on the poles. “In the Earth Kingdom, we celebrate Mid-Autumn with moon cakes, dances, and lanterns.”  
  
“Why lanterns?”  
  
“So one is never lonely.” Liu turns to the rest of the city, waiting. There’s a crescendo of noise, that then steadies into a distant cheer, and the sky is suddenly awash in floating lanterns, bobbing this way and that, softly up, like rising water with a surface of square, playful lights. Liu sees them reflected in Amon’s eyes, they’re shining with fascination. He imagines his mouth open beneath porcelain in awe.  
  
“Let go with me,” Liu states, and their hands push the lantern softly up. It floats into the air, shyly at first, then gains steady altitude, the only lantern in their area as it swims through the night sky towards the moon, like the other thousands all over the city. The lights massed near the water suddenly disperse into the water, turning the bay into a night sky as the water makes them travel further from each other, like a birth of a universe. The lanterns in the sky mass towards the moon’s bright face, like many moons clamoring to kiss Yue first.  
  
Finally, Liu sees what he waits for, cherishes, and lives for. The slight lift of the mask, Amon’s eyes twinkling, a peek of his cheeks open in a smile. He leans forward and grabs Liu’s hand, holds his hands and bandaged wrists over his, feeling their even temperature. They exchange glances, and then watch the lanterns enter the night sky and their memories together.  
  
And so, Amon gives all the subsequent nights of full moons to Liu (and sometimes the handcuffs, too). But every year, during Mid-Autumn Festival, a lone lantern will float from abandoned part of Republic City.


End file.
